“Detective Sean Stokes,” Javi said. “You remember him?”
She arched her straight, peppery brows curiously. “I do. Good detective. Bad taste in friends.”
That meant he’d only been passively corrupt—blind eyes instead of kickbacks.
“Is he still in town?”
Mel nodded. She click-tapped her fingers over the keyboard of her computer, and a frown pinched the line between her eyebrows deeper. She grabbed a pen and scribbled an address down with writing that ran diagonally over the Post-it.
“Here,” she said and held it out.
She hung on to the corner as Javi tried to take it. “He never liked the Feds. It would have driven him to the brink having a resident agency here.”
Her piece said, she pulled her headphones back on and went back to work.
Javi checked the address and mentally revised his opinion of Stokes—blind eyes andsomekickbacks. A local cop didn’t buy a house in Spruce Groves on his salary alone.
Chapter Twelve
THE RETREAThad opened its rec hall to the search effort and piled up hi-vis vests and hastily laminated maps on trestle tables along one wall. Groups of people clutched whistles in sweaty hands and listened to quick and dirty instructions on good search protocol while news cameras filmed from the sidelines and, with the Hartleys leaving their lawyer to talk to the public, pulled out random people for heartrending interviews.
Cloister grabbed a bottle of water from one of the ice chests. There was plenty to go around. The Retreat’s lanky groundskeeper had been hauling in buckets of ice and crates of water once or twice an hour. Cloister didn’t know if Reed had approved it or not, but Matt gave him an awkward, crooked smile when he asked.
“I know what it is to be thirsty,” he said as he wiped a condensation-wet hand over the sun-scorched back of his neck.
One of the reporters had come over to ask him questions then, and Matt made himself scarce. So it wasn’t just handsome FBI agents who made him uncomfortable.
Cloister twisted the lid off the bottle, poured it into a bowl for Bourneville, and presented it firmly under her nose. She sneezed into it, turned in a fretful circle, and stepped over the leash like it was a jump rope. Given the option, she’d rather run herself into heat exhaustion than get pulled from a hunt with nothing to show for it.
It was a good trait when they were actually tracking, but they weren’t even sure Drew was still in the area. Most of the deputies had been pulled away, leaving SAR volunteers to beat the bushes and canvas neighboring farms and businesses. Cloister wanted to bring the boy home too, but he wouldn’t run himself or his dog to death to do it. He caught Bourneville’s collar and showed her the water again.
“Drink,” he ordered.
She sighed, and her ribs heaved under her dusty coat. She stuck her nose into the water.
“Here,” a teenager said as she handed Cloister a bottle. She was wearing a badge with Drew’s face on it. Most of the new volunteers were. Cloister had no idea who organized that or when. “You look nearly as thirsty as she does.”
“Thanks.” Cloister nodded at her. She smiled back and then looked guilty about it.
While she handed out more bottles around the room, Cloister took a drink, and the cold hit his sternum like a heart attack. It made him grimace, but he kept drinking. The dull headache that had been dogging him for the last hour eased off, and the scratch in his throat disappeared. Maybe Bourneville wasn’t the only idiot with a tendency to overcommit.
He squatted against the wall with his head tilted back and the water bottle dangling between his knees. The back of his neck felt hot and itchy with sunburn, and sweat and dust had turned the morning’s pleasant ache into a chafed itching. None of which he’d care about if it weren’t for the heavy feeling of futility lodged in the pit of his stomach.
The pitch of the room changed abruptly, and the soft murmur of emotional interviews was replaced with sharp, overlapping questions.
“…questioned the family….”
“Is there any chance of finding Drew Hartley alive after….”
“…respond to theories that Drew’s disappearance is linked to the recent arrival of immigrants….”
Cloister knew who’d arrived even before he heard Javi’s low, measured tones responding to the questions with reassuring but uninformative sound bites. His voice reached under Cloister’s skin and tweaked at the nerve bundles.
It had always done that, of course. The difference was that, instead of thinking Javi was a dickhead, Cloister was thinking about Javi’s dick.
He lifted his head off the wall and watched Javi deal with the press. It was “too soon to know anything” and “irresponsible and inaccurate to jump to those conclusions,” and a promise to update them the minute they knew anything. He looked around as he talked, and he scanned the room until he finally caught slight of Cloister. When he did, he narrowed his eyes slightly and inclined his chin in brusque acknowledgment.
It was hardly the warmest greeting, but Cloister’s cock still twitched with the memory of Javi’s hand on him and the rasp of that controlling voice in his ear. He mentally told it to behave, which worked about as well as it usually did, and he pushed himself up the wall. Bourneville looked up at him, and water dripped from her chin as she cocked her head.
